Speaking Bajan in Barbados

Barbados is an English speaking country,  Bajan Dialect is just broken english.  You have many nationalities living in Barbados, everyone communicates effectively in english.

Hi Priscilla and Brownskin, nice to meet your here.  My roots stem from Barbados and Cuba.  I am currently in Barbados working as an expat but hope to be moving to Medellin this year.

It is widely agreed that speaking Bajan is essential for a successful integration in Barbados. Do you agree?  It does help. All Barbadians speak English, but knowing the colloquial language Bajan is great for social occasions, and as in any country, when you learn the colloquial language, people take a liking to you, and your social circle will enlarge, if that is important to you.

Do you speak Bajan? If so, where did you learn this language? Where can one attend a language course in Barbados? I believe that understanding British words, meanings and Bajan proverbs goes a long way to understanding the colloquial language. The other thing that helps is getting accustomed to hearing third person pronouns not declining in all situations, subjective, possessive, and objective cases to include accusative and dative, as well as getting accustomed to the overall Caribbean English dialect. The only documented work on the colloquial language that I know of is the  book by Frank A. Collymore, "Barbadian Dialect." I heard that UWI, University of West Indies was interested in teaching a course, but I do not know whether that happened or not.

If not, how do you cope with daily activities? Is it easy to communicate in a different language with Barbadians? Barbadians are friendly people, and will interact with you in English just as easily as speaking the colloquial language.